Technical officers frustrating tea project

Jul 21, 2010

TECHNICAL officers in Kabale district have frustrated the success of a tea project despite huge amounts of funds invested towards its development, a team of evaluators has said.

By Ronald Kalyango

TECHNICAL officers in Kabale district have frustrated the success of a tea project despite huge amounts of funds invested towards its development, a team of evaluators has said.

The project, which has so far cost the Government over sh900m, is a partnership between the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) programme, the Kabale local government and Kabale Tea Development Co-operation.

“The score card puts the success of the project at 45%. Technical officers have not helped farmers to benefit from the project,” said Daisy Eresu, the head of the evaluating team.

Eresu who heads the tea industry at the agriculture ministry together with Happius Namanya, a technical officer at the NAADS secretariat, spent one week in the district evaluating the project’s implementation.

Their findings indicate that only 845 farmers have planted tea, yet the project identified and registered 5,071 farmers in December 2008. The identified farmers have planted 450 acres out of the projected 1,500 and yet 2,950,000 plantlets have been distributed.

“Basing on the distributed plantlets, we expected to find at least 570 acres planted but only 450 acres are in place. So a total loss of plantlets covering 120 acres has been registered,” said a report compiled by the team, which was read out to technical officers who gathered at the district council hall, last week.

The report also indicates that 950,000 plantlets bought from Bushenyi district in May 2008 were wasted. According to the draft report, the plantlets were delivered late and without supervision.

Eresu said during their field visits, they were informed that some workers unloaded plantlets by throwing them off the trucks like bricks.

She said there were also a substantive number of plantlets from the main nursery which was developed by Good African Tea (GAT) that were wasted due to impassable roads and vehicle break downs.

Geoffrey Bazira, GAT’s operations manager, noted that the project had not picked up to his expectations. He said out of the 45 nursery operators that he trained, only four are operating around urban areas.

“Let us be frank, technical officers can either love or hate me but you have frustrated the project in the sub-counties,” he said.
To confirm his argument, the draft report noted that some sub-county NAADS coordinators and chiefs had not supported the project to their expectations.

Bazira said he had played his role of establishing a central tea nursery. “We raised two million plantlets and have managed to distribute 1.6 million plantlets,” he said.

Bazira, however, said his company needed sh2m on a monthly basis to look after the plantlets in the nursery before they are planted in August.

Joseph Maira Mukasa, the chief administrative officer, admitted that there was laxity in the planning process but was optimistic that the project would succeed.

“We did not have enough trucks to transport tea to farmer’s gardens. Once we used garbage trucks and Kabale became one of the dirtiest town because there were no trucks to remove the collected rubbish,” said Mukasa.

However, John Ruribikiye, the Bufundi LC3 chairperson, said all partners were supposed to dedicate their time towards the development of the project.

“Tea is an ambitious programme that needs committed people to sacrifice their time and embrace the enterprise with one heart,” Ruribikiye said.
Honest Tumuhirwe, the Bubale sub-county NAADS coordinator, asked for forgiveness and promised that the lessons they had learnt would help them improve on the project’s implementation.

“I ask the technical officers not to be biased in their report. We have accepted our mistakes and ask for forgiveness. We promise that we are determined to implement the project in the second phase,” Tumuhirwe added.

His counterpart from Kamuganguzi, Bernard Kabagambe, however, blamed the Government for developing ambitious programmes before assessing the situations in the implementing sub-counties.

“We have poor roads and this limited many distant farmers from planting tea in their respective gardens,” Kabagambe said.

The district production coordinator, James Kasimbazi, noted that they had learnt lessons over the two years and was optimistic that all the challenges they had encountered would be addressed in the programme’s second phase.

“We have written a better proposal worth sh3b. I am confident that when resources are made available, the project will be better implemented,” he said.

The partnership for growing tea in Kabale was launched in April 2008. It targeted the planting of about 5,000 acres of tea in six sub-counties of Bubale, Butanda, Bufundi, Kitumba, Rubaya and Kamuganguzi but later spread out to other sub-counties.

Bazira has been to India and made orders for the necessary machinery that will be used to construct the factory. Before establishing the factory, GAT requires 1,000 acres of tea seedlings although ideally, 1,500 acres would be make for a smooth operation.

From one acre, a farmer can harvest 2,500 kilos of tea per month and sell each kilo at the current market price of sh250 per kilo.

This means one can earn sh600,000 per month. In a year, a farmer is capable of producing 28,800 kilos thereby earning an annual income of sh7.2m.

After deducting costs, a farmer can remain with sh5m as profit. Good maintenance and plucking gives a farmer 36 rounds of harvest in a year. The farmer is therefore assured of a stream of income throughout the year.

GAT had hoped that when production begins, it would export quality black and green teas to markets in Europe, the US and Asia.

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